You must know that both ways are good, and lead you on to your wished end, if they be but rightly and orderly according to Art proceeded withall.
Question 18.
By what means shall an unskilfull beginner, and one who is ignorant of so great an Art, enter upon the right way, and not err, whenas he hath not any one to guide him as it were along by the hand?
Answer.
Who shewed the way unto the other Philosophers that were before us? were not all of them (some few excepted who confess that they learned the Art from good Friends) constrained to learn the same out of the Books of the Ancients, and by the divine Revelation?
Question 19.
Where may a Man find such good and well disposed Friends who will shew the way to him that is unskilfull?
Answer.
Such men are wondrous rare, and indeed good reason have they so to be, and to deal warily and wisely in revealing such notable secrets. It is not engraven on each Man’s Forehead, whether he be good or evil; we rarely meet with any example, whereby it hath appeared, that even a Father hath disclosed to his Son so great a secret before his death. Nay more, if Parents have left ought written for their Children at their death; yet hath it been so intricate as that they could not do any good on it without divine Revelation. And upon this very account have divers such desisted from the work, finding that the Writings which their Parents left them were fully as hard to be understood as those written by other Authours, and which were not penned and published for the sake of their Children, but for the sake of all others in general.
Question 20.